Review, features, engine performance, pictures, and pricing for the jeanneau prestige go.

My examination of the 50’s interior produced two significant impressions. First, the overall layout’s noticeably well designed. While you might expect a lower deck with three heads (each with separate stall shower) and three staterooms, along with a galley to port and a crew’s quarters astern, to be just a tad overwrought, nothing could have been farther from the truth. The placement and dimensions of cabinets, doors, and lockers are so savvily conceived that the whole area feels spacious. And pushing the easy-living ambiance even further is the natural light coming from an immense windshield (directly above the galley), numerous opening ports, and a large window molded into the starboard side of the full-beam, midships master.

Savvy Sidedecks When I was working on boats 30 years ago I was noted for my agility. I may be blowin’ my own horn here, but with a little help from my arms, I used to be able to jump straight up from the deck of a supply boat to the top of her exhaust trunk in one bound—a distance of about five feet. These days, however, the agility thing is subsiding a bit and so is my sense of balance. Hence my 60-something enthusiasm for the configuration of our Prestige 50’s side decks. They facilitated my travels betwixt bow and stern, big-time. Check out the photo at right. At the narrowest point, the decks are about ten-inches wide, which is plenty to accommodate my extra-beamy Birkenstock boat shoes. Moreover, the handrails are thigh-high for the most part, and there’s a molded-in toerail that keeps us doddering oldsters firmly on track and onboard.

The thoughtful approach underlays the main-deck arrangement as well, with its raised dinette on the port side forward, a set of opposing lounges aft, and a bar (with reefer, faucets, and a stowage cabinet) just abaft the lower station’s benchseat. The styling is economically modular but crisp. High-gloss cherry joinery was appealing to the eye, and scarfs, butt joints, bullnoses, and other aspects of fit and finish evinced careful, machine-cut precision.

My second impression was gloomy by comparison. I found the 50’s engine room, accessed via a couple of hatches in the cockpit, to be cramped, not particularly well lit, and subject to more of her French builder’s influences than I’d like. At just over 16 inches, the distance between the mains was slight—there was simply not enough room for an average-size 5'11" guy like me to move around freely. Also, getting at the batteries between the inboard engine bearers was problematic: The barrel-type latches on the removable panels over them were tough (if not impossible) to open by hand. Outboard engine access seemed virtually non-existent. And in addition to the use of the French language on various ancillaries, I came across some wholeheartedly French (and possibly difficult to service) components on the forward firewall—two Cristec 24-volt, 20-amp battery chargers and a quartet of Soderep-Ecans battery switches.

A bargain takes the sting out of such relatively minor details, though. And at $815,000, the base price of the Prestige 50 is well under what many comparable stateside cruisers retail for these days, thanks in part to the economies of scale giants like Jeanneau can squeeze from a production line. Add this nifty little feature to a creatively designed interior with oodles of living space and a high level of maneuverability and performance, I’d say we’re talkin’ a true bon vivant here. Even if I did have a little trouble backin’ her home.

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